Movies you've just watched

[BIL]

Lifeforce

First. Picked for Tobe Hooper. Easy to claim that this is a rip-off of at least 3 more distinct films of genre. Funny that, despite the, uh, strong influences, it's a simple formula: Q&A session followed by pfx or vfx, all of them nifty, another Q&A, more fx, etc. Only the means of the interviews differ: under hypnosis, threat of harm, dream revelation, drug use, all with truth at every turn. A male-dominated piece just as it is, only 3 women of interest exist, perhaps meant as archetypes: Lillith, Mistress of Nude, masochistic gal who prefers to be mistreated, and a secretary who after offering tea becomes a most useful battery. A B movie who reaches too far in run time and outlives it by at least 20 minutes. Ah, and the all-connecting energy is of pale blue hue, and sparkles up close. That is all, metaphysically.

Oho, darling Mathilda-chan. >:3 Assassinate your epileptic co-workers AND/OR get them fired!

NWS, watch out X-93 KUN (｀w´メ)

Ah man. I last posted those when x93-kun was complaining about Boobs On Film. Or something. 3; I only wanted to tease him! But in hindsight, I may have done permanent damage by surprise un-gaying him!

Well anyway, NYN-san, have you perchance seen ERECTRIC BOOGALOO THE UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILM ? Legit great watch! A sternly-worded love letter to Golan & Globus. ;w;7 Many great GIFs *and* entertaining insights into the running of a global schlock empire!

"Now, when the monkey look at you, you can tell he LOVE you, and he say HELP ME, HELP ME-"

"Is... the fuckin monkey gonna talk?!"

"We decide later! Now-"

Spoiler

AIEEE

Ah man, the authentic style. Do you believe in Jesus? Good! Because you are about to meet him (｀w´メ)

NO BOOBS I SWEAR ;3

Also! Runaway Train feat. Jon Voight & Eric Roberts = LEGIT EXTREME MOVIE! (No Spoilers PRO REVIEW)

Not spoiler just BATTLE TRAIN.mp3

[NYN]

Session 9

First. Shot on real haunted grounds, before it became new apartment buildings. An all-male cleaning crew for asbestos is under pressure to scrub in 7 days for the bonus paycheck, in the derelict Danvers State Hospital, all with various relations to another. What could possibly go right, here? Produced in an understated manner, there are some layers to this, free to apply one's own understanding. Loose cinematography, it's no Blair Witch found lies footage. Tainted surroundings, warped minds, spilling from one form into the other. Original madness, or is it something to catch? Don't breathe it in, let it breath you. If it features any stereotypes I wasn't aware of it. Just come home. Oh, roses! You shouldn't have! Now what? Spill, spill, spill.

[GaijinPunch]

A Tale of Summer
Watched on recommendation from our very own Lord British. A young, seemingly introverted new graduate vacations alone in a beach town in the hopes his "girlfriend" joins him. Meanwhile, he meets a few other damsels. Definitely more simple and approachable than the last few things I've watched, which was a delight. Pretty subtle, up through the end. I actually have a dear friend that committed some of the same blunders this guy did, to which I chuckled internally. My friend did that shit at 40 though, and not 22. I've got My Night at Maud's on the tablet, but as instructed, I'll do at least one other of Rohmer's before that. I was able to download this currently on Max in the US.

[Randorama]

Guess I'm glad I didn't grow up in Italy - she's still prime time fap material here.

If we happen to meet in Italy and your significant other asks, I will wear my best furbo face and deny that we have ever discussed this topic at all. Of course. Or Italian women in general.



Any movie with Vittorio Gassmann, by the way. Legendary actor with immense range and this absurdly intense screen presence.

Once you will be fluent in the language, you may ask your significant other if she can dig up Gassmann’s readings of Divina Comedia. Maybe they can be found on YouTube.

[GaijinPunch]

If we happen to meet in Italy and your significant other asks, I will wear my best furbo face and deny that we have ever discussed this topic at all. Of course. Or Italian women in general.



Any movie with Vittorio Gassmann, by the way. Legendary actor with immense range and this absurdly intense screen presence.

Once you will be fluent in the language, you may ask your significant other if she can dig up Gassmann’s readings of Divina Comedia. Maybe they can be found on YouTube.

Well, we've got a way to go before that. Some other horse shit in life is taking over so my Italian "lessons" are on hold. I'll get back to them soon enough.. I am in the gym and my back has never been better, so hoping maybe I can get to posting in the weight lifting thread sometime soon. I didn't go too deeply into it, but I was in agony for a very long time.

[Lord British]

A Tale of Summer
Watched on recommendation from our very own Lord British. A young, seemingly introverted new graduate vacations alone in a beach town in the hopes his "girlfriend" joins him. Meanwhile, he meets a few other damsels. Definitely more simple and approachable than the last few things I've watched, which was a delight. Pretty subtle, up through the end. I actually have a dear friend that committed some of the same blunders this guy did, to which I chuckled internally. My friend did that shit at 40 though, and not 22. I've got My Night at Maud's on the tablet, but as instructed, I'll do at least one other of Rohmer's before that. I was able to download this currently on Max in the US.

Cool man, MNAM's is a good ying to ATOS's yang. ATOS is the 4th one I saw, and it's the one where I "leveled up" a bit want to check out the rest. Rohmer is a hard reco unless you find someone who just watched part of The Before Trilogy, so I hope you can see why I insisted.

[Lord British]

No worries GP and question: are you finally in love with (young) Monica Vitti? Don’t deny it, we all are

Nah Rando, Monica (old or young) is exactly my type. Even the newest photos I could find still have my interest.

I don't wanna be thirstposting on fucking shmups farm but I'm just saying. Also the fact she can act and has so much screen presence doesn't hurt.

Oh, Vitti is a lock in my Top 5 definitely.

[GaijinPunch]

Cool man, MNAM's is a good ying to ATOS's yang. ATOS is the 4th one I saw, and it's the one where I "leveled up" a bit want to check out the rest. Rohmer is a hard reco unless you find someone who just watched part of The Before Trilogy, so I hope you can see why I insisted.

Indeed - it was a great rec. The stuff I've been watching of late has been a bit heavy, as well, so this was a nice zag.

[Lander]

Сталкер / Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)



In which the titular Stalker - an individual who illegally accesses the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in pursuit of profit - guides a Writer and a Professor through supernatural hazards to a room rumored to grant one's innermost desire.

---

As part of a holiday binge of GSC's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, I donned my culture hat and watched the almost-three-hour philosophical epic predating them.

I'll preface by noting that I haven't read Roadside Picnic - the book that inspired both works - though have some grasp of its ideas by way of synopses and the like.

Unsuprisingly, the differences between the two derivations are vast; beyond the core concept of Stalkers, The Zone, and the Wish Granter, the two are hardly comparable. Where the games take a practical approach to fitting Roadside Picnic's ideas into workable military-ish shooter form, the film is almost exclusively interested in examining the philosophical questions raised by the concept of a supernatural place capable of granting an individual's wish.

Indeed, I wouldn't blame a viewer for siding with the cynical Writer and questioning whether the Zone is actually supernatural at all; unlike the book and games - which explicitly categorize various classes of anomaly and their effects - the film is content to leave most of the Zone's more exotic properties implicit, primarily communicated through the Stalker's extreme caution, and repeat urging that his charges should not tempt fate by straying from the path.

It does ultimately seal the deal by visualizing strange phenomena in a couple of places, but don't go in expecting to see Burning Fuzz, Witches' Jelly, or anything so bombastic as an Emission; the focus here is on fear of the unknown, and the idea of what horrors may lurk within the disused Soviet installation at the heart of our protagonists' quest.

And on that front, it does a fine job; the Zone is barren and empty, trading mutants and Chiki Briki bandits for sheer atmosphere. The 'Meat Grinder' - a tunnel predecing the room which grants wishes - is particularly notable as a well-chosen voyage through industrial decay.

Tonally it's incredibly rich, with long (long) shots used to establish feel and communicate the nature of the characters and Zone to the viewer. Notable is its use of color; locations outside the Zone are shot in monochrome, whereas locations inside it (and elements originating from it) are shot in full color - presumably representing how the Stalker views life on each side of the divide.

But its greatest achievement is in the characters and their torments, each driven to the Zone by their own troubles and obsessions, and ready to examine them through lengthy emotional monologue at a moment's notice. To wit, it has an overarching sense of being a stage play put to film, rather than being defined by more modern notions of a motion picture.

On the whole, I found it enjoyable, though feel that I perhaps lack the context to connect the dots with the weighty Greatest Film of All Time reviews that delve into the echoes of Soviet history and its social implications. Its surface-level ideas are universally understandable to anyone with a modest philosophical leaning, but the deeper implications and sources of inspiration are perhaps left to those with a dual-class in Film/History.

[GaijinPunch]

Where do you stand on Tarkovsky's other works? As a big fan of space age and mid century furniture and decor, Solaris hits my G-Spot. What really strikes me about Stalker, is I can't watch it or read about it, without considering it's massive, massive undertaking, as well as being the film that basically killed Tarkovsky, his wife, the lead actor, and I think one of the crew (at a minimum). Something happened w/ the development of the originals, and they basically reshot from about the half-way mark, or something like that. And then, at some point, they realized the water they were literally lying in was contaminated with toxic waste. Not that the film is uplifting in the least without those nuggets.

[Sima Tuna]

Roadside Picnic is better than Stalker, but Stalker is still good.

Solaris is my favorite of Tartovsky's films. I don't know what else to say about it that somebody didn't already say back when it was new. The remake of Solaris (with George Clooney IIRC) was a pile of shit next to the original and yet it's still a good movie overall. So that's how good the premise for Solaris is.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On the TCM channel, Stalker had been shown a couple of times within the past few years. Sad to hear that the director and other film production crew members died trying to get it filmed. Did they have access to Giger counter devices when filming within that huge and sprawling Russian nuclear facility? Radiation poisoning is lethal.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[NYN]

D U n E, Part 2

First. Expecting a time warp between parts, none given. Yay? Proximity to religious prophecy lets peeps go nutty. Stilgar silly and senile, acting as comic relief. Creepy Mom talks to unborn daughter and shares her inarticulate opinion. Harkonnen secret anemic mutant vampire people, gaining high rank on desert planet. Suggesting that destiny is something to be exploited. How to not become cosmic dictator? It is written, literally. Submitting freely, after some fresh dilemma. Let the holeh waz commence. Ride the worm, sweet sand sister! Knowing the books, I didn't miss anything, nor found it too long, surprisingly. Walken nice, yet not nuts enough. Needs more nuts!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Dune Part Three is currently in the works. There is mention of Dune Part Four could be a possibility down the road. I recall watching David Lynch's 1984 theatrical movie of Dune that the paying audience patrons each, got a two-sided printed piece of literature as a cool film souvenir to explain the complicated and detailed terminology and characters to gloss over before watching it.

----------

Director Quentin Tarantino canceled his "The Critic" film production project and seems to be looking for another film to do as his 10th and final "grand opus" film. If he'd do the Kill Bill Vol.3 sequel with Beatrice Kiddo and remaining Company, it'd be quite the "grand finale" that concludes the Kiddo mythos/saga once and for all. That'd be quite epic and definitely "one for the ages" indeed. The real question to ask then is, would actress Uma Thurman be interested in reprising her "older and much wiser" Beatrice Kiddo character? And will there be retribution/revenge from the "Crazy 88 Gang" survivors from Kill Bill Vol.1?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[GaijinPunch]

Solaris is my favorite of Tartovsky's films. I don't know what else to say about it that somebody didn't already say back when it was new. The remake of Solaris (with George Clooney IIRC) was a pile of shit next to the original and yet it's still a good movie overall. So that's how good the premise for Solaris is.

Travelling through Ginza in a futuristic car was peak cinema for me. I need to watch that again. They've played it at cinemas here and there, but I've always missed it. I could live in that space station.

On the TCM channel, Stalker had been shown a couple of times within the past few years. Sad to hear that the director and other film production crew members died trying to get it filmed. Did they have access to Giger counter devices when filming within that huge and sprawling Russian nuclear facility? Radiation poisoning is lethal.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Wikipedia documents both, but the fuck up w/ the film stock being more prominent. I saw n article that had stills from the originals ages ago, but can't find it now. Honestly, they looked fucking cool! However, I can see how he just wanted to start over. I was watching a behind the scenes scene from one of his films (The Mirror, I think) and they needed a very strong wind. So just above the subject, out of the viewfinder, they used a helicopter to make the wind.

For the hardcore nerds, Tarkovsky published a book of Polaroids called Instant Light. Like a dipshit I missed my window to pick one up for like $50.

[neorichieb1971]

Fly me to the moon - Apple +

A story about the moon landing with a controversial side story of faking the moon landings.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Those 4:3 aspect ratio CRT-based monitors shown in the 2024 sci-fi/horror flick Alien Romulus interquel were actually Apple iPad screens with an outer transparent screen shell that's curved to make them look like those old-school CRT-based monitors featured in the classic 1979 Alien and 1986 Aliens films. Even the computer terminals were all 3D printed as part of the background scenery of the Romulus research station outpost.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Lander]

Where do you stand on Tarkovsky's other works? As a big fan of space age and mid century furniture and decor, Solaris hits my G-Spot.

I don't yet, Stalker was my first. Though Solaris sounds fascinating (and has a real eye-grabber of a poster!) so I'll have to queue that up for a watch.

What really strikes me about Stalker, is I can't watch it or read about it, without considering it's massive, massive undertaking, as well as being the film that basically killed Tarkovsky, his wife, the lead actor, and I think one of the crew (at a minimum). Something happened w/ the development of the originals, and they basically reshot from about the half-way mark, or something like that. And then, at some point, they realized the water they were literally lying in was contaminated with toxic waste. Not that the film is uplifting in the least without those nuggets.

Yeah, I think the first round was shot on a new type of film that ended up overdeveloped because the lab wasn't familiar with it. Must have been devastating, to say nothing of the further-reaching consequences.

It's a curious sensation, becoming familiar with key locations like the CNPP, Pripyat, the Red Forest, Yanov station, Jupiter factory, etc. via a fun sci-fi shooty game, then exploring more sober depictions and their actual history, and being awed by the sheer artifice and cost of it all. I suspect the film's philosophy and raw emotion will sit in mind and steep in that context for a while.

Roadside Picnic is better than Stalker, but Stalker is still good.

It sounds like the book would be in my wheelhouse - the cosmic visitation angle is quite compelling, and I hear it examines the implications on the world beyond the zone a bit more too.

Are you familiar with the games' rendition of it? It's a bit closer to the original, but is a bit of a mess of (partial) demystification and multi-layered obfuscation.

i.e.

Yes there's otherworldly stuff, but on account of well-intentioned idiot scientists poking a crack in reality instead of visitors from beyond.
But whether a given Weird Thing is actually otherworldly, a tech-magic cover-up employed by said scientists, or a cover-up-of-a-cover-up as presented to Yevhen Everyman, is generally unclear.

[Sima Tuna]

I never played the Stalker games beyond maybe five minutes of the first one. Roadside Picnic isn't the kind of book about guns or shooting or crafting. It is very much in the cosmic horror genre, where the otherness is totally unknowable. It isn't conscious or evil or anything, just a force of nature. You can compare the book best, I think, to a book about minesweepers or bomb defusers. The Stalker guys are just dudes who know where all the mines are buried, and they have a long stick and some sensors they use to locate new ones as they appear. The movie isn't a bad adaptation of the book, but I think the book is better. The book has more of a central conflict than the movie does. Tartovsky sometimes gets a little too up his own ass with the nature scenes. Nature isn't really the point of Roadside Picnic. The point is that the danger is around you all the time, and you can never tell where it is unless you already know. The threat is beyond human understanding. Imagine if the alien version of B.P. had a big oil spill right over your neighborhood, and suddenly there was toxic sludge all over the place. Except it was invisible. So you didn't know where it was safe to step unless you had a chart or somebody already told you. Otherwise, you'd land in a tar pit or quicksand of sludge.

That's Roadside Picnic. It starts with a scientific research framing and then we get the peek behind the curtain, to the world of illegal Zone-running for profit.

[GaijinPunch]

Tartovsky sometimes gets a little too up his own ass with the nature scenes.

As much as I love a lot of his stuff (mainly b/c he seems like a photography nerd that was given a movie camera) this is spot on. And, it gets worse as he got older. I watched Nostalghiia in movie theater not long ago. Beautiful, but I still don't know what the fuck happened.

[Lord British]

Never wanted to give my opinion on Tarkovsky until I finished all his movies, and now that I have: meh. He's completely up his own ass, and even though I like some other directors that are also up their own ass sometimes; AK is just not my cup of tea in the end.

I saw Stalker first and I was totally in into it. Even though not all the existential aspects of it didn't fully register with me, I came away very impressed. Then I pretty much liked every consecutive AK less and less, except for Andrei Rublev which I saw 4th, but I fell asleep like three times watching it. A lot of parts of it have stuck with me though.

I loved Ivan's Childhood, but that's more like a Kalatozov movie than a Tarkovsky.

[vol.2]

Knowing the books, I didn't miss anything, nor found it too long, surprisingly.

That was Dune II's greatest feat, successfully converting the source material into a rote action film. It's a pretty good action film, but there's some story speed-bumps. As I mentioned in March, the trade-off for the action-focus is that the story is simply told to the audience through stiff expository shoe-horning. There's simply too much story to fit into the time allowed, and their choice was to just delete it, along with a lot of character development. I didn't read the books, so I didn't have the narrative to fall back on.

It felt much like a video game based on a movie that wouldn't make sense in some important ways unless you went to see the movie first and were already on board. But I think they skirted around the worst of that by making a movie that is gripping and beautiful in it's own way.

Walken nice, yet not nuts enough. Needs more nuts!

I always like Walken, but I have to admit that his strong Queens accent felt out of place to me in a Space Opera set in the Middle East.

[Vexorg]

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: ****

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Feathers McGraw, the evil penguin from The Wrong Trousers, breaks out of prison to enact vengeance (most fowl) on Wallace and Gromit by turning Wallace's recently invented garden gnome robots evil. I haven't seen the three original Wallace and Gromit shorts in years (and have yet to see A Matter of Loaf and Death or The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which reportedly fell victim to excessive meddling by the studio), but this feels like it fits right in with those. It's just a little too short for a theatrical release, but the length is just right for a streaming movie, and I'll take 79 minutes of Aardman-quality stop motion animation over 105 minutes of generic CG any day. Lots of blink-and-you'll-miss-it gags sprinkled throughout (typical of Aardman films) and a fast-paced story that culminates in quite possibly the slowest and most British high speed chase possible.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3: **
Can't be bothered to write much about this. If you've seen the first two Sonic the Hedgehog movies expect more of the same.

[vol.2]

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: ****

I watched it with my parents and my nephew over christmas get-together and we all enjoyed it. My dad and nephew are both big Nick Park fans, so it was a must-watch in that situation. I thought it was a lot of fun! I especially like the penguin's return, he's a fantastic villain.

My only criticism is that I felt like they didn't really spend enough time on Wallace and Gromit together. Usually they at least give them some kind of baseline situation of domestic bliss before things start to go sideways and Gromit has to save the day. This time they started off with Gromit upset and things are restored to "normal" when the situation unfolds (due mostly to Gromit's persistence) and things become clear to Wallace and everyone else. A minor complaint, but I did feel particularly bad for Gromit this time around and I don't feel like they made it up to him properly.

[XoPachi]

Rewatched Raimi Spiderman after 18 years. There was a brief stint where people were trying to claim these were awful movies in the mid 2010's. 1 and 2 are still my favorite superhero films. And for the first one, Simmons and Dafoe in the same movie is a recipe for success. Tobey is still my favorite to sling web.

[RGC]

Good Morning (1959) - Yasujirô Ozu

A miscommunication over a missing W.I. membership payment fuels the gossip among some already gossip prone stay-at-home mums in suburban 50s Japan. Meanwhile, two brothers go on a talking strike after their parents refuse to buy a TV (that age old screen time issue in its most primitive form!). The boys incorporate pumice into their diet, in the belief it helps one be able to fart on command (a skill required for peer acceptance). There's a general message about how society communicates; what people say (the trivial stuff), what they don't say (the obviously important stuff), but also how, like farting on command, the seemingly trivial stuff is in its own way important as a social glue. Charming and funny. No real darkness to this one, just a hint about rising crime and poor police protection at that time. It's sweet without being sentimental.

[hazys]

Some quick reviews...

Millennium Mambo (2001): Languid and atmospheric Y2K-era doomed romance in Taiwan. If you like Wong Kar-wai you'll probably like this.

Cloud (2024): Kiyoshi Kurosawa's pitch-black comedy about Amazon resellers. Very different from his 90s output but extremely smart all the same.

Halloween II (2009): Nowadays recognized as ground zero for the "horror about trauma" trend. Very enjoyable for a Rob Zombie flick though.

Bad Lieutenant (1992): Abel Ferrara's movies always make me feel sick in a good way. This is probably his most famous. Get ready for a bad time though.

Trap (2024): I'm not a Shyamalan truther or anything but this is probably his most entertaining film since his legendary 2000s run. Prime movie-night schlock.

Miracle Mile (1988): Really fun and somewhat unusual "worst night ever" LA disaster movie. Reminded me of Scorsese's After Hours.

[Sumez]

Rewatched Raimi Spiderman after 18 years. There was a brief stint where people were trying to claim these were awful movies in the mid 2010's. 1 and 2 are still my favorite superhero films. And for the first one, Simmons and Dafoe in the same movie is a recipe for success. Tobey is still my favorite to sling web.

I thought the first one was incredibly dumb when it came out. It is a little funny given how many of the things I thought were dumb have become so incredibly common in movies since then that the way this movie handles it actually comes across much more competent in retrospect.
That said, I did enjoy Spider-Man 2 when it came out, and it is a much better movie than the first. I love the "Raimi'isms" of it, and my favorite aspect of both movies is that artificial feel they have, almost like a stageplay. They are unapologetically movies, and hyper-stylized whenever it's beneficial to be so. Every superhero movie should do this.

[NYN]

I love the "Raimi'isms" of it, and my favorite aspect of both movies is that artificial feel they have, almost like a stageplay. They are unapologetically movies, and hyper-stylized whenever it's beneficial to be so. Every superhero movie should do this.

The gal gets abducted in every single one of the 3 for cheap drama, and is left in very demeaning situations to scream her lungs out in helplessness. That's the hyper-stylized part, right? Oh, no, that's a G0LDEN AGE now.
20-years-after-magic...


To elaborate a little: I am one of the creeps who watched the Raimi trilogy the last time at the dawn of the then "new universe" of Marv, before Mickey took over. Around 2010/11, all 3 on one weekend, closer to the era those movies were created in then they can be now. The shiny Wow was gone, and they felt stale way to fast. Now, I know overall Raimi movies. Peeps ether love them for the over-camp or don't bother at all. That can't help the product. When I heard that the current Spider-Man money-printing machine did a cross-over with the 'other' 2 predecessors (even The Aborted Spider-Man in the Middle) I felt disgust. Playing on the different demographics like that. How peeps surrender to this as a ready audience, just to feel something.

[Sumez]

The gal gets abducted in every single one of the 3 for cheap drama, and is left in very demeaning situations to scream her lungs out in helplessness. That's the hyper-stylized part, right?

You're joking, but that's absolutely one example.

Also, the new Spider-Man movies are honestly ok. I'm not a fan of the whole Marvel movie thing, and Homecoming is probably the only one of them that feels like a "real movie" to me - and despite having Iron Man in it doesn't really feel like it relies in any way on the rest of the MCU. It's just a fun movie about a clumsy guy trying to be a hero and also getting a date for the prom.